Center on American Politics

Under the leadership of Professor Edward G. Carmines, CAP ensures that the department continues to sponsor and promote cutting-edge scholarship and training in American politics. CAP offers a wide range of support for doctoral students: funding for conference travel; competitive research grants; opportunities to launch original instruments on nationally representative sample surveys; substantial professionalization opportunities for students entering the job market; and summer funding opportunities.

Throughout the academic year, CAP sponsors a weekly American Politics Workshop in which students, faculty, or guest speakers present their work and receive critical feedback. These lively events are often an opportunity for students (at all stages of the degree program) to gain essential experience presenting in front of (often very difficult!) audiences. Other lectures expose students to the research of IU faculty and potential future colleagues from other institutions. In short, CAP promotes the collegiality, rigorous scholarship, and healthy disagreement that is the lifeblood of academia. And it deliberately engages with the world of political science beyond IU.

CAP is proud of the world-class mentoring offered by affiliated faculty. CAP faculty members are interested in a wide range of fundamental questions about American political behavior and institutions. But they are united by a commitment to asking the right questions in the right way -- and showing students how to do so also. With CAP support, IU doctoral students (in the past several years alone) have published in State Politics & Policy Quarterly; Annual Review of Political Science; Political Behavior; PS: Political Science and Politics; Political Research Quarterly; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and Justice System Journal. Furthermore, doctoral students affiliated with CAP have obtained competitive tenure-track or post-doctoral positions at major universities.

2017-2018 (includes upcoming speakers)

Professor Nathan Kelly, University of Tennessee -- September 28-29, 2017
"National Election Outcomes and the Perpetuation of Economic Inequality"
(Co-sponsored with the Department of Political Science)